Benefits and limitations single-media vs milti-media air pollution regulatitons or contorl - Essay Example

Running Head: Air Pollution Insert His/her s Benefits and Limitations of Single-Media Air Pollution Regulation/Prevention verses Multi-Media Air Pollution Regulation/Prevention Pollution is the introduction of contaminant in a natural environment that cause instability disorder, harm or discomfort to ecosystem. (From epa.gov.) Air Pollution controls are used to prevent contaminants form entering the atmosphere. The efficiency of control technologies captured the contaminants at the source and then mechanically emits it into the environment Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) earlier standards are dominated with media specific strategies that give little attention to the transfer of pollutant among media (from air to land, form land to water or from land to air).

The Clean Air Act (CAA) covers air and the Clean Water Act (CWA) covers water specific. However, pollution is not constrained by statues; it can shift between media by natural and human action (Everett, 2004). Fortaine states that we have improved our abilities to detect toxic pollutants, understand their movement through the environment, and asses their impacts; we have increasingly realized that pollution is rarely contained with the artificial boundaries of our regulatory system (Fortaine, 1993).

Therefore, environmental management of pollution is improved when all media are considered. Two common ways for controlling air contaminants are the single media approach and the multi-media approach and each one have their benefits and limitations. The limitation of discharged in medium such as air, while correcting the immediate pollution problem with that medium, often do little more than shift the pollution to another medium. Such transfer can even create greater problems in the medium in which they are moved.

In many system, control technologic used aimed to achieve specific limits to pollution often generate new streams of residual that have adverse effects on the media (Guruswamy, 1991). For example, the CAA directed at reducing sulfur dioxide requires the use of scrubbers in smokestacks. Sulfur dioxide in the exhaust reacts with the spray and forms a solution form which sulfur dioxide is later removed, strained and disposed of sludge (Guruswamy, 1991). Therefore, there are no benefits of discharging in one media to another because it compounded by indirect transfer resulting from physical, chemical and biological action (Fiber, 1988).

Indirect transfers of pollutants by physical, chemical, biological, processes are subjected to create hazardous toxic or waste. Everett mentioned that an intentional pollution shift may occur to destroy a pollutant, convert it to a safer form or reduce its quantity or concentration. This is considered a beneficial aspect of single media pollution prevention. If proper controls are not used, the transfer can create even greater problems in the medium in which they are moved. In the case of physical (volatilization, leaching and deposition) or chemical (chemical structure change or toxicity) can create toxic waste or air pollution problems.

In the biological process in the transfer of pollutant across media includes microorganism break down toxic compound also present a new problem like in the case of mercy changing to highly toxic methyl mercury. The cross-media pollution problem has unintended impacts in one environmental medium of environmental regulations and implemented in another. Multimedia, on the other hand, also has merits and demerits. The environmental management approaches to multi-media pollution cover all the environmental systems, air, land, and water.

The multi-media approach can be applied to single facilities, entire company, and region. EPA stated that a multimedia approach can be employed in the context of three basic types of enforcement actions as quoted: Against single facilities, where entire industrial processes at a facility may be examined as a whole to determine compliance with all environment laws; Against entire companies, where violations of different environmental law occur at various facilities indicating ineffective corporate-wide management of environmental compliance; and Geographical based enforcement efforts arising form a comprehensive multimedia analysis of the environmental problem(s) in given area or industrial sector.

The multimedia approach eliminates pollution hazards form over environment and renders it very expensive. Thus it makes this approach unaffordable. This approach also seeks the attention, of the people making the plan, toward multiple topics, and thus the plan takes time to be implemented. Finally, multimedia and single media both have their producing and anti-pollution plan but the merits of multi-media clearly overcome it demerits and it makes the multimedia approach more suitable. Single media on the other hand has a very slow approach, in addition to that it does not work to eliminate the air pollutants form overall environment but instead it works on a single medium in a time that is either land, or air or water.

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